Am I blogging...or am I pitching my existence?
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| High Concept Am I blogging...or am I pitching my existence? |
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Monday, June 07, 2004 The Pitch: It's like The Shawshank Redemption meets Clockwatchers! Back at the job, and the sky outside couldn't be more beautiful. Lunch is over an hour away and although there's nothing particularly excruciating about work ('yet,' intones the Old Jobkeeper with a pop-eyed leer and an evil 'eh-heh-heh-heh-heh' giggle), I just do not want to be here. Vacations are a great way to get rid of the feelings of tedium that creep in to one's job, but they can also, unfortunately, highlight jobs that are nothing but feelings of tedium. I'm hoping I've just got the early summer blues and will get over them soon, because I'm not taking any time off between now and the end of next month.Speaking of time off, yesterday I started my first non-Gravity's Rainbow book, Wild Cards Book I, and am now 90 pages in. I've heard good things about the series and I don't want to diss it, so I'm assuming the problem is with me. I'm a lazy reader of standard fantasy and sci-fi (strike one!), I don't tend to like short fiction (strike two!), and the prose is little more than functional (let's call that one a foul, rather than a strike). I mean, I can see the appeal: alternate world history with recurring characters caught by different authors--plus superpowers! But, for one thing, I feel like I just read that (only by one prodigiously gifted author instead of several mezzo-mezzo types) and, well, I don't know... call it Post-Pynchon Depression, but it just reads like traditional commercial fiction: the writers do their best to sate the reader's appetite for what's being offered, and then do their best to get out of the way of giving it to us. I feel like I'm not reading as much as browsing intently, which is why I'm both kinda shocked and not at all surprised I'm a quarter of the way through it already. I'm obviously pretty messed up in my reading habits, but I have no idea how I'll make it through all seventeen volumes of these things. Ugh, what a whiner I am about a book that someone else loaned me! I suck. As for things that don't suck, I already forwarded this along, but I think it's just too damn good not to share with everyone: http://www.hardnphirm.com/rodeohead.html It's a beautiful bluegrass medley of Radiohead tunes, that is both hilarious, inspiring (and, for me, unexpectedly touching but I doubt that's a standard response). It's one of those classic "this is why the Internet's so great" kind of things, and I hope you like it. posted by Jeff Lester | 11:15 AM | |
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